27/2/10 – Appointment–Fontainebleau, Etablissement public du château de Fontainebleau – Now an « Etablissement public », the château in Fontainebleau is no longer run by a curator, like Versailles and some other museum institutions, something which we have often pointed out as being an unfortunate circumstance.
However, the recently appointed president, Jean-François Hébert (see news item of 30/9/09), seems to be aware of the fact that a museum is first and foremost a scientific establishment. A few months ago he told us that he intended to underscore the role of conservation in this museum and said he wished to appoint a real art history scholar at the head. This is now the case with the recent arrival of Xavier Salmon who took over last 1st February.

General heritage curator (conservateur general du patrimoine), Xavier Salmon was curator in charge of 18th century paintings at the château in Versailles between 1993 and 2006. For the past three years he has been Director for General inspections of museums (directeur de l’inspection general des musées), a department which in the opinion of curators in the provinces, was no longer relevant, alas, and has now disappeared after reforms carried out by the Culture Ministry, taken over by a larger entity called “Inspection du patrimoine”.
Xavier Salmon is an 18th century specialist who has organized several exhibitions and published books notably on painters such as Jean-Marc Nattier, Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Alexandre Roslin.